Advocates for Responsible Treatment is a grassroots volunteer organization comprised of concerned residents of Southern California, united in our determination to have a voice in the future of addiction rehabilitation in our cities.
Our Mission
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As a unified voice for Southern California,
• to promote higher standards and enforcement of resident care • to ensure that recovery businesses act as good neighbors, operating in a safe, humane and legal manner • to reduce the excessive number of transient care facilities in our neighborhoods • to eliminate the loopholes encouraging over-concentration of transient recovery |
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The Challenge
California addiction rehabilitation today is a quagmire of lax regulation, limited oversight, pseudo-science and snake-oil salesmen promising hope to desperate clients for the cost of a retirement, college education or second mortgage. Throw in loose insurance and tax payer funding, provide the operators with complete anonymity and zero criminal background checks, and the result? Recovering addicts in California are dying from inappropriate, incompetent or downright illegal treatment. The best exposé at the moment can be found at the Orange County Register.
Over the last five years, cities with the greatest density were Malibu, Laguna Beach, Costa Mesa, Dana Point, Laguna Hills, San Juan Capistrano, and San Clemente, and these remain among the most concentrated. In 2022, 36% of licensed 6-and-under treatment houses were located in a single county in California, the County of Orange. Unlicensed residences have proliferated in all of these cities as well as Huntington Beach, Laguna Niguel and Mission Viejo. As an example, at any one point in time, San Juan Capistrano has ~31 state licensed and certified sites in a city of 35,000. EIGHTEEN of these are certified, commercial Treatment Centers, and most have satellite properties--many of which are unlicensed--operating in neighborhoods. THIRTEEN are licensed Detoxes. Indeed, across Southwestern Orange County, businesses are presently renting and purchasing multiple properties in single-family neighborhoods on the same street. With access to money traditional home purchasers don't have--business loans and cash from operations in particular--they are displacing permanent families our cities need. In short, these businesses are exploiting the character of our cities at the very real cost of lives--of the very vulnerable people they are supposed to protect.
The model of "non medical" care for early-in-recovery addicts in residential neighborhoods is a farce, perpetrated by healthcare professionals who believe institutions are simply bad; yet, the housing they create is an institution in which occupants are not integrating with the community, which was the original purpose of de-institutionalizing addiction and mental health care. The evidence they ignore continues to explode. We've collected data on local sheriff encounters, as well as media coverage. It's time for professionals who claim to support addiction treatment to pull their heads out of the sand and admit that early addiction treatment, reimbursed by health insurance, is already and should be clinical and take place in low-level clinical settings, not in residential settings because they are cheaper and more profitable.
Over the last five years, cities with the greatest density were Malibu, Laguna Beach, Costa Mesa, Dana Point, Laguna Hills, San Juan Capistrano, and San Clemente, and these remain among the most concentrated. In 2022, 36% of licensed 6-and-under treatment houses were located in a single county in California, the County of Orange. Unlicensed residences have proliferated in all of these cities as well as Huntington Beach, Laguna Niguel and Mission Viejo. As an example, at any one point in time, San Juan Capistrano has ~31 state licensed and certified sites in a city of 35,000. EIGHTEEN of these are certified, commercial Treatment Centers, and most have satellite properties--many of which are unlicensed--operating in neighborhoods. THIRTEEN are licensed Detoxes. Indeed, across Southwestern Orange County, businesses are presently renting and purchasing multiple properties in single-family neighborhoods on the same street. With access to money traditional home purchasers don't have--business loans and cash from operations in particular--they are displacing permanent families our cities need. In short, these businesses are exploiting the character of our cities at the very real cost of lives--of the very vulnerable people they are supposed to protect.
The model of "non medical" care for early-in-recovery addicts in residential neighborhoods is a farce, perpetrated by healthcare professionals who believe institutions are simply bad; yet, the housing they create is an institution in which occupants are not integrating with the community, which was the original purpose of de-institutionalizing addiction and mental health care. The evidence they ignore continues to explode. We've collected data on local sheriff encounters, as well as media coverage. It's time for professionals who claim to support addiction treatment to pull their heads out of the sand and admit that early addiction treatment, reimbursed by health insurance, is already and should be clinical and take place in low-level clinical settings, not in residential settings because they are cheaper and more profitable.
Take Action
File a Grievance if you are a recovering addict and
a VICTIM of abuse or fraud perpetrated by a rehab operator in a residence.
a VICTIM of abuse or fraud perpetrated by a rehab operator in a residence.